For most digital marketers, SEO is all about gaining visibility in a given market: what happens next regarding sales and conversions isn’t really SEO-related.

Although they’re not fundamentally wrong, SEO has become a lot more complex in recent years, partly because Google implemented changes in their algorithms to include new ranking factors such as mobile friendliness, page loading time and overall user experience.

As of 2018, SEO encompasses tons of digital marketing factors that can genuinely contribute to improving conversions and revenues.

If you have any digital marketing experience, you probably know that visitors have different intents: some visitors know your websites, some know your products and some know nothing(we’re not referring to Game of Thrones, or are we?).

The point is, never assume that your visitors will automatically convert once they land on your landing page.

As a marketer, you should then design an SEO funnel that will bring qualified visitors based on their intent to cover every step of your website’s sales funnel.

Respond to Top-of-the-Funnel queries

At this stage, we’re referring to broad queries: potential visitors have questions that need to be answered in the most complete, insightful way possible.

In order to do so, you’ll have to scrutinize your market in order to identify top-of-the-funnel queries (TOFU queries).

These questions differ from one industry to another: it’s all about identifying needs and questions.

TOFU example for bike-related shops

In this example, potential visitors are looking for bikes that fit their needs: these potential buyers just don’t know the kind of bike they should get.

It’s your job to provide them with relevant content to answer their questions.

Provide insightful clues to Middle-of-the-Funnel visitors

At this stage, potential visitors are becoming serious about making a purchase: they’re thus extremely valuable to your business.

Middle-of-the-Funnel (MOFU) visitors come with a purchase intent: they know that they will buy; they just don’t know what and from whom.

Check out results for “best guitar for…”: guitarists are looking for guitars that will fit a certain music genre.

In this example, your job would be to create content that would address these queries: “top 10 guitars for jazz players; The Best Electric Guitars for Metal…”

Convince future buyers at Bottom-of-the-Funnel stages

At the bottom-of-the-funnel stage, we’re talking about potential buyers that have repeatedly visited your website, know your product and are almost ready to order from you.

This final step is crucial, as it is the cornerstone of your conversion rate optimization efforts.

In order to convert these potential buyers, you’ll have to answer all queries necessary to reassure your potential customers.

Here are some of the main ecommerce visitors’ concerns:

Shipping and delivery costs

Customer Service

Packaging

Colors, sizes and custom orders

At this stage, one effective solution to convert visitors is to include customer reviews and video testimonials: this will provide your visitors with meaningful insights from customers.

Think Mobile Friendliness

Since Google rolled out its Mobile First Index, mobile experience has become a primary factor to determine your rankings.

Simply put, Google now ranks your website based on the mobile experience it provides, including:

How fast your website loads

How optimized your images are

How long your visitors stay

How many pages your visitors read

By improving your website’s mobile experience, you will both improve your SEO rankings and your conversions.

Knowing that more than 50% of all traffic comes from mobile devices, you should start optimizing your website for mobiles uses now.

First, improving your mobile experience will help you rank higher in search engine results: this will bring in more qualified visitors to your website.

Then, having a mobile-ready website will help you convert more customers: this will increase your sales revenues.

In short, mobile friendliness has reached a point where it’s a virtuous circle: ranking higher in search results will bring more customers who will convert better, thus attracting even more new qualified visitors.

Anthony BrebionAnthony is a B2B Digital Marketing Specialist. He's currently managing Demand Generation at AB Tasty, with a strong focus on marketing automation, nurturing and inbound marketing. He was previously an SEO consultant and worked several years for digital ad houses. View profile on LinkedIn.